pressure cooker chicken wings

If you’re hosting a game-day party or Superbowl, you need three things- good beer, a great TV, and Buffalo Chicken Wings!! Spiced with a rub, deep fried or baked, then coated in a sauce made with a vinegar-based cayenne pepper hot sauce and melted butter. Served hot, along with celery and carrot sticks with either ranch or blue cheese dressing for dipping, Buffalo Chicken Wings are ‘the most popular’ sports-party snack.

Buffalo Chicken Wings get their name from their place of origin. They were invented in 1964 at Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York by a sports bar owner Teressa Bellissimo.

Chicken wings are prepared by cutting the wing in three parts- drumette, flat wing, and flapper. The flapper is discarded and the drumettes and flats are used for this dish. You can do this yourself, or, buy them pre-cut from your local supermarket, from the meat or frozen section.

OVEN vs. INSTANT POT

One weekend, my kids and hubby challenged me to a Chicken Wings cook-off. They made a batch in the oven, like we have been making them forever, and, I made a batch in my programmable pressure cooker, Instant Pot. We used the same spice rub and same coating sauce for both sets. So here are both recipes and our family’s comparison for both using three metrics- texture, ease of cooking and time. End result of both style of wings looked so similar. Take a look at the images on this page- Can you tell which ones came out of the oven or the Instant Pot? Exactly!

TEXTURE:

Instant Pot: The wings were super moist after cooking. We ate a few without any sauce and they were delicious. Pressure cooking the wings with the rub infused them with the flavors really well. We coated them with sauce and broiled them to get that crisp texture. It took longer than usual to crisp up the skin though. It took around 6 minutes in the broiler to get the crisp texture and it wasn’t as crispy as the one from the oven.

Oven: The meat was cooked perfectly and the wings had a nice crunch after the first round of baking. We sauced them and broiled them for 1 minute on each side and the result was ‘perfect’ crisp chicken wings.

Winner: In the end, my family preferred the extra-crispness of the oven chicken wings over the Instant Pot.

EASE OF COOKING:

Instant Pot: Cooking ribs was super easy in the Instant Pot. Simply rub them and dump them in the steamer basket and set a timer. The result was so moist that we could have skipped the broiling process and simply dipped them in sauce. The skin wouldn’t have been crispy though. So, that’s entirely a personal preference.

Oven: My kids made the oven recipe entirely by themselves, so it’s fair to say, that it was easy as well. Rub them and bake them in the oven. The result was crisp and cooked well. If you’re short on time, or, serving a huge crowd, you can skip the broiling step and serve them with the hot sauce on the side. It’ll still be wicked good.

Winner: In terms of ease of cooking, I would say it’s a tie, since both methods were equally easy enough for us. The only advantage in the oven method was that in the end, we just had one baking sheet to wash. Whereas, in the Instant Pot method, we had the inner pot and steamer basket in addition to the baking sheet.

TIME:

Instant Pot: The Instant Pot took around 20 minutes to cook the wings- 10 minutes to build pressure + 5 minutes of cooking time + 5 minutes of NPR time. But then, it took around 6 minutes (3 minutes on each side) to broil them for crispness. So, it took around 26 minutes.

Oven: We baked the wings for 30 minutes at 425F, so including the time for the oven to pre-heat, I would say it took around 37 minutes, depending on your oven. But then, you could do your spice rub prep while the oven is pre-heating. Then, we broiled them for 1 minute on each side. Overall, this method took around 40 minutes.

Winner: The Instant Pot method saved us around 15 minutes of total cooking time.

This comparison is purely based on my family’s preference, but I hope that this helps you understand the difference in results. Here’s the recipe: Continue Reading…

About Me

Hi, I'm Aneesha! GMK is a peak in my kitchen where I make my family's favorite 30-minute recipes. I make healthier and quicker versions of authentic North-Indian cuisine and popular global recipes. These recipes are fail-safe for my teen cooks too. All my recipes have three things in common- bold flavors, protein & carb balance, and almost no-babysitting while cooking!